Prelude to Adventure
by Gamewizard2008
Summary: "When you get older, Sheila... Oi want you and your friends to have GREAT adventures!" One-shot: Marine/Sheila family.


**Hey, everybody, I had this one-shot planned for a while! Just a little backstory about Sheila. Let's watch!**

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**_A Prelude to Adventure! The Little Sheila That Dreams!_**

A peaceful noon on Azultown's eastern beach. The waves brushed along the shore, but the beach was completely barren, except for one woman. Marine Frantic, the 25-year-old raccoon woman, sat on the beach with her right hand leaned against the ground behind her, and her left leg stretched out. She clutched a bottle of rum in her left hand as she drank. Marine was dressed sloppily; in a small, light-green T-shirt that greatly showed her belly, and short black shorts. Her arms went over her shirt, but it was kept up by her cleavage. She had no shoes on her bare feet, and her expression looked drunk.

Her sky-blue eyes focused intently on the sea. A particular spot has been emitting slight bubbles. She's focused on that spot for several minutes. Waiting…

"GAAASP!" Finally, someone emerged from that spot and swam to shore. She was Sheila Frantic, Marine's young 5-year-old daughter, in a green T-shirt, black shorts, and bare feet. She was a tan-skinned Australian human, but had brown raccoon ears and a tail. She hurried up to her mother and dropped a few small shells, two gold coins, and a necklace, still dripping wet.

Marine had another drink and grinned widely. "Well, it looks like ya made it, Sheila!"

"Pleah!" she angrily spat some water out. "Wot was all THAT for, Mum? ! I swam all the way down there just for junk! Oi almost drowned!"

"He he he! Well, wasn't it a thrill, Sheila! Divin' ta dark depths, not knowin' what lies?"

"Hmmm… well, maybe a little bit. But Oi wanted ta find a whole CAVERN o' treasuhs! ! But I only found a few itty-bits!"

"Heh heh heh." Marine wrapped an arm around her daughter. "Sheila… the whole point to adventurin' is exploring brand new places, learning new things, and using those new things to explore OTHER places! I mean, Ay taught you how ta swim so ya could see what lies under the waves of our own beach! And now that you're a great swimmer, aren'tcha glad ya saw what was under there?"

"But I didn't FIND anything! !" she stomped in anger. "Wot's the point of goin' to all this rubbish if ya don't find anything? !"

"Sheila… have I ever told you about the King of the Pirates?"

"King o' the… Pirates?"

"Yeh… ya see, Sheila, the best people in this entire world are pirates. Pirates sail the briny sea, free from all the troubles o' the world, lookin' fer only adventures. They chase only dreams, and the wind shows them the way. But there was one pirate… who was greater than all the others. 'e was the King. And he sailed this WHOLE world. Legends say that before 'e passed on, he left a GREAT treasure, the most amazin' treasure anyone's evuh seen. 'e told the world, if they wanted 'is treasure, they could have it. But they'd have ta find it. And so… hundreds o' pirates, all over the world, set sail to find it. …That was a Great Pirate Era."

"But did anyone evuh find it, Mum? ?"

"Hehe, o' course not, Sheila! Ta this day, no one even knows if the treasure was real. He mighta just been trickin' a bunch of blokes inta goin' out and havin' great adventures. All we know for sure is… it worked."

Marine turned her daughter around to face the endless sea. "Sheila… the sea is endless. The UNIVERSE is endless. There's no limit to how many adventuhs you could have. That's what all them pirates thought. Maybe there was a treasure, maybe there wasn't. But because o' that bloke… so many people got to experience that freedom. Oi want _you_ to have that kind o' freedom, too. There's so much in the world ya wanna look at. So many great things…"

Oddly, Sheila felt enticed by her mother's words. Her young blue eyes couldn't look away from the sea's endless waves. Just what great things _was_ she talking about? What could possibly exist over those waves? More importantly, is the treasure really real? Now, more than ever… Sheila wanted to know.

"And it's not just the sea Ah'm talkin' about." Marine mentioned. "Adventuh can exist anywhere. Have ya ever wondered what's above those clouds?" Sheila looked up, gazing at the fluffy white clouds overhead. "Or under the earth?" Sheila pressed her left raccoon ear to the sandy ground. "Even the grass beneath our feet! Oi bet there's LOADS of adventures right under our noses!"

Sheila gripped her nose and pulled it up, trying desperately to look under it. She let go and shook her head. "But Mum, Oi thought pirates were _bad_?"

"Ehhh, there are bad types out there, Sheila… loike Davy Jones or Blackbeard. _They_ were pretty bad blokes. But they lived by the same morals, Sheila: pirates are free. They've raised their sails, and marked the sea their territory. They've seen many wonders our eyes could nevuh comprehend. They've seen the world… for what it is…"

"…Didju ever try to find the treasure, Mum?"

"Weeell, Oi did. But then Oi found me own treasure."

"Really? ? Wot? ?"

"Your dad. And then Oi got you." She smacked Sheila's back. "You're the shiniest treasure I evuh coulda had. And I want ya to have a happy life."

Sheila felt touched by her mother's words. An ecstatic expression appeared on her face as she said excitedly, "Let's go find it, Mum!"

"Hm?"

"The treasuh, the treasuh!" Sheila jumped. "Let's go find it together and have RIPPER adventuhs!"

"Hehehehe!" Marine plopped a hand on her head. "Yer too young, ya little dinga! But when yer a little older… Oi want you to take yer friends and have GREAT adventures! And find all sorts of ripper treasuhs!"

"I WILL, Mum! !"

"Ah know ya will… now, come on." Marine stood up. "We're drivin' down ta Virginia fer a few days." She walked away as Sheila ran after. "You're about to meet yer first mate."

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**And thanks to Marine's drunk ramblings, Sheila was inspired to walk into random magic portals and shrink down to ant-size, then almost get killed several times. X) Ahhh but Marine had her senses with her, she had the right mind. ;) Sheila's kind of going to be a big deal later. Well, next time, we'll get back to the Big Mom Saga. Also, guess who Sheila's first mate is. ;) Later.**


End file.
